Will wild horses in the West be slaughtered?
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USA Today, among other media outlets, has reported that the cost of corralling and caring for wild horses in the West is spiraling, sparking concern among animal lovers that the horses may be slaughtered:
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) says slaughter remains a possibility for some of the more than 30,000 wild horses and burros being cared for in government-run pens. A Government Accountability Office report issued last week lent support to the agency’s assertion in June that the costs of caring for the animals have skyrocketed. The GAO said the agency should consider euthanizing some horses or selling them, likely to a slaughterhouse, as an alternative to keeping them in long-term holding pens for their entire lives...
But today the Washington Post reports that these horses may not have to be slaughtered after all. Madeleine Pickens, wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, has made it known that she wants to adopt ‘most or all of the 30,000 horses and burros kept in federal holding pens...Madeleine Pickens is looking for land in the West that would be an appropriate home for the horses.’
Animal rights groups are, to say the the least, thrilled.
--Alice Short
